


The Importance of Family

by Lynds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilogue, I made myself cry with this, M/M, Mirror of Erised, Poor Harry, Post-Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, many things and relationships not tagged for spoiler reasons, not really sure if it's compliant or not!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 07:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12249897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: Harry Potter just wants a family. That's all he's ever wanted. But after the war, nothing is the way he thought it would be.Also known as the 'Epilogue was a vision in the Mirror of Erised' fic





	The Importance of Family

**Author's Note:**

> Based on my own recently acquired head-canon that the Deathly Hallows epilogue was something Harry saw in the Mirror of Erised, which makes me deeply sad. (See [my post about it on tumblr](https://goldfromstraw.tumblr.com/post/165945009055/epilogue-of-erised) if you really want to lol!) So as soon as I thought that, I decided to spread the sadness (sorry) AND then figure out how he'd get a 'real' happy ending. I hope you enjoy!

The building was smoking, the foundations creaking, moaning like the people still in the great hall. Mourning their dead. Harry’s feet echoed as he walked down the corridors, wand out, looking left and right for anyone who needed help. Still needed him. McGonagall had told him to go to bed, there was nothing more he could do, but if he stopped, he might actually think about everything, so on he walked in the dying castle.

A light glinted through a broken door, and Harry raised his wand as he stepped cautiously through. Then let it fall.

The mirror of Erised had tilted at some point, leaning drunkenly against a wall, but there wasn’t a single crack in the glass, and before he knew what he was doing, before he could think about what a bad idea this all was, he was in front of it.

There was the Hogwarts express. A young boy with scruffy black hair and an owl. A boy called James Sirius Potter. Harry slid to his knees as he saw them all…his family. Ron and Hermione happily married with a beautiful, intelligent little girl. Teddy Tonks kissing Bill and Fleur’s daughter. His own children, and his wonderful, supportive wife. Even Malfoy was there, he hadn’t disappeared completely with his family…and he didn’t hate Harry any more.

Harry had a family, and they weren’t all dead.

“Did you see them, Hermione?” he asked, when she lifted him to his feet and dragged him to the makeshift dormitory in the great hall, once the wounded and the…and the others had been taken to St Mungo’s. “Did you see my family?” 

He rubbed his scar. His head still hurt so much. It wouldn’t hurt when everything was as it should be. It wouldn’t hurt when all was well with the world, and now Voldemort was dead, all would be well.

“Come on, Harry,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. Her hand was cool on his forehead as he fell asleep, or unconscious, or something. Better not press into her hand too much, he thought. Ron would be jealous.

***

Ron was gone the next day with the rest of his family. “Why didn’t you go with them?” Harry asked Hermione.

“They need room to grieve, Harry,” she said, her voice trembling. “Just family.”

“But you’re family, now. You and Ron, you’re together. And me and Ginny, I suppose.”

She frowned at him. “We’re not together, Harry. Not like that.”

“But I saw you…”

“Oh, that. It was just a kiss. If I’d been closer to you I’d have kissed you too. I thought I was going to die, for God’s sake, I just wanted to feel…as alive as I could feel, you know?”

He frowned. “But…”

“Anyway,” she sniffed, and he looked up, shocked to see the tears trembling in her lower lids. “I’m going to Australia as soon as I can. I’ve got to find my parents, see if I can do anything. Pro-Professor Flitwick’s offered to accompany me and see if he can help.”

“Well, I’ll come with you,” he said firmly, and it was like the blood was able to flow again. They had another mission.

She put her hand on his arm. “No, Harry. I just…this is something I need to do by myself.”

“Oh. Right. Of course, family is the most important thing.”

***

He would call his other son after two men who had taught him to fight and to strategise, he thought, as he faced the screaming portrait of Walburga Black and tried to cast the right spell to take her down. Men who’d shown him how to push themselves past their emotions and their own needs for the greater good, who’d taught him that sacrifice was necessary, no matter how it broke your heart. Two headmasters of Hogwarts, his home. The school he’d thought was invincible, but it wasn’t going to be opening its doors for September. There was the possibility it would be open next year, but McGonagall had seemed exhausted when he’d last seen her. Like she wanted to wash her hands of the whole thing, the only thing keeping her going the thought of the people who’d sacrificed everything for the only home Harry had ever known.

He accepted a cup of tea from Kreacher, retreating into the kitchen. The old house elf fingered the locket around his neck with a tiny smile and Harry wondered why so many important people were dead. Maybe Luna would be a good name for a daughter, he thought. Someone living.

Lily Luna.

He rubbed his scar. It didn’t hurt, hadn’t done so for a while. It just felt numb, hollow, like something was gone. Something awful, but something that had just always been there, comfortable in his familiarity, and while he didn’t _miss_ it, it was…unsettling. Like the Dursleys. He’d hated them, hated the cupboard under the stairs, but now that was gone and there was a gap somewhere in his life. Somewhere a chronic pain had been, and now that was gone, he was cast adrift, not sure what to do.

***

“Do you think we’ll get married?” he asked Ginny one day in the field behind the Burrow. The Weasleys had come back after six months in Romania with Charlie, getting away from everything, finding their own room to grieve alone and as a family.

Ginny laughed, her head thrown back, her newly short hair glinting copper in the sun. Harry tried to laugh with her, pretend it was a joke, but she snapped her head around to him. “Oh, God, you were being serious.”

“Oh…no, just kidding around.” He gave a false chuckle and waved his hand at her. 

She didn’t believe him. She sat cross legged and faced him fully. “Harry, I’m…I’m with Luna now. I…I’m so sorry, I thought you didn’t…and then I spent so much time with her and I realised…well, it was always just a bit more of an infatuation, wasn’t it? With you? I always just had this massive, stupid crush, and…” she put her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly,” he laughed, and made more of an effort to make it sound real. “You’re right, we…you’re more like my sister, anyway.”

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he grinned and punched her in the bicep, making her downturned mouth quirk up on one side. “It’s not like I had all our kids named or anything.”

She looked out over the rippling wheat. “If I ever have a son I’m going to name him Fred,” she whispered, and her chin started to tremble.

He pushed away the sudden flood of shame and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her and letting his own tears fall with hers.

***

The auror training entry requirements were changing, but slowly. Until the new legislation was passed through the skeleton ministry, aurors were still expected to have their NEWTs, and with Hogwarts shut indefinitely there was no chance of getting those this year either. Harry wandered around wizarding Britain for a while, before the disillusionment and attention started to get too much.

It was supposed to have changed after Voldemort was dead. Diagon Alley was meant to bounce back - and it was getting there, but some of the old shops were gone forever. Madam Malkin’s never re-opened, and Florian Fortescue made a valiant effort before deciding to sell up and move back in with family in Margate. 

But the worst was the attacks. He supposed it was naive to imagine that the Battle of Hogwarts had ended centuries of tension between pureblood and muggleborn wizards. To be honest, he was probably naive to imagine that people were better than selfish, easily led bastards who wanted to make themselves big by crushing others underfoot. He got into fights with Voldemort sympathisers, of course, but the ones that broke his heart were the people who expected him to join in tormenting his former enemies. Just because he didn’t _like_ Draco Malfoy didn’t mean he was going to look the other way when a group of middle aged men started pushing him around in Diagon Alley. He certainly wasn’t going to _join in._

“But he’s a fucking Death Eater! He’s a _Malfoy!”_

“The war is _over!_ There aren’t any Death Eaters any more, can we not just…fucking _stop_ this? Just…I don’t know, just fucking _look after_ each other and be glad we’re not all ruled by a psychotic bastard with daddy issues? Jesus, I did _not_ fucking die for this!”

He clamped his hand around Malfoy’s upper arm and apparated to Hyde Park. “Fucking _bastards.”_

“Thanks,” said a soft voice. Harry did a double take. Malfoy was pinching the bridge of his nose tightly, leaning forwards to slow the nosebleed. He glanced up at Harry. 

“You…uh, you’re welcome?” Malfoy huffed and gave him a half smile, and Harry’s head spun. “Not you too.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry drove his fingers deep into his hair and sighed. “Everything’s…different. Everyone’s different. I thought it would be…”

“Different?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think I’d be doing? Grovelling at your feet, begging forgiveness?”

He laughed, one sharp bark that made him think of Sirius with a stab through his chest. “The opposite, really. I just…I thought everyone would be pretty much the same as they were in school. You’d be all pointy and stuck up and…and here you are actually _speaking_ to me. I was sure you’d keep your distance. Although," he said, kicking the ground, "I guess I was…hoping you wouldn’t hate me.”

He shrugged. “Well, I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t? Huh...I’m not sure how I feel about that actually.”

“Make up your mind, Potter.”

He sighed. “Nah, that’s a terrible idea. I shouldn’t make up my mind to want anything. It’ll only be disappointing. I’ll, uh…I’ll see you round, OK Malfoy?”

***

“Lavender?” Harry asked as the door slammed behind him and Ron. “Seriously? Don’t you remember year six and Won-Won?”

Ron rolled his eyes. “We were fifteen and sixteen, Harry, for God’s sake, that was years ago!”

“But…Lavender Brown?”

He huffed. “She’s sweet, Harry. I know you guys think she’s just a dumb blonde, but she’s kind, and funny, and yeah, she’s silly, but she’s got a heart of fucking gold. She’s had a really rough time since the battle, because she always did put a lot of stock in her appearance. You know she thinks nobody will want to know her any more now she’s not ‘pretty’?” He put the air quotes around the word. “She told me that’s all she’s ever brought to the table, and now she’s lost it, but that’s bullshit. She’s…I think…I think I love her, Harry.”

Harry dropped his head into his hands. “This is not how it was meant to be,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Everything!” he snapped, standing up suddenly. “You’re meant to be with Hermione, you guys were perfect together. And I was meant to marry Ginny and then we’d all be _family_ , proper family, and we’d have kids and they’d all be cousins, and they’d grow up together and all go to Hogwarts together - and now Hogwarts has been shut for a whole year, and that’s…there’s something wrong with the world when Hogwarts isn’t…isn’t _there_ , and—“

“Harry! Mate, calm down,” Ron said, aghast. “I just…me and Hermione? You and _Ginny?_ What are you talking about, that was all ages ago. What’s all this about?”

He covered his face, rubbing his fingers into his eyes. “Nothing, Ron. Sorry. You’re right, I’m…I’m glad you and Lavender are so happy.” He forced a smile. “How’s George?”

Ron shrugged, still looking at him warily. “Drinking too much. Not talking enough. You know how it is.”

“Has he seen much of Angelina?”

“Angelina Johnson? Nah, mate, she went off to the states last year. Harry, why are you suddenly obsessed with match making?”

“No reason,” he murmured. “Hey, I’ve…uh, I’ve got to get back to Grimmauld Place, I’m expecting an owl. I’ll see you later, OK?”

Ron nodded, his forehead still crinkled with worry, and Harry apparated feeling like an absolute bastard. He got disgustingly drunk that night.

***

The first person to show up on the front door of 12 Grimmauld Place after he removed the fidelius charm on it was Cho Chang, a little boy clutching her hand.

“I was hoping you’d teach me defence.”

“What?”

Her spine was so stiff he was worried she’d snap, but at his question she sagged and let out a great gust of air. “Hogwarts is shut for at least another year. The structural damage was more extensive than they thought and the wards are next to impossible to re-do until the foundations have been stabilised.”

“OK…”

“Harry, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s still a dangerous world out there. You’re the best defence teacher I ever had, and I know this is…awkward, but my little brother Xian’s due to start in September, and…well, my parents and I agree we can’t afford to wait any longer.”

“Cho, I’m not a teacher.”

“You weren’t a teacher back in fifth year either, but you did a damn good job of it.”

He sighed and pulled his hair. “I can’t give you qualifications.”

“That’s OK.” She smiled tentatively, the first one he’d seen from her since…well, probably Valentine’s day back when they were fifteen. “Thank you, Harry.”

She wasn’t the last to arrive. Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot, even Blaise Zabini showed up over the next few months, not to mention all the students in lower classes. For the first time in months he had a purpose. His brain was working faster, he was planning, studying new spells, getting out of bed and going to sleep at a regular time.

He’d wanted a quiet life. Wife and three kids, massive extended family all close and piling into one another’s house on Christmas, all the people he knew in school still around and just as happy as him. Hell, he’d even had room in his daydreams for Malfoy to be settled. But maybe…maybe this was OK. Maybe the quiet life wasn’t for him. Maybe he wasn’t meant for a big family but this…this rag-tag band of different ages and abilities, crammed together in a ballroom Kreacher had opened up somewhere in the inexplicable space of the Black house, maybe this could be…something.

***

“I heard you’re the person to come to for self defence lessons,” said Malfoy, standing on his doorstep with his eye swollen shut.

Harry let out a hiss of sympathy and beckoned him inside. “Get attacked again?”

“No. Well, yes, but this time it was a break in. Someone bypassed the wards on the flat.”

“You have a flat?”

“You can’t honestly think I went back to the manor?”

“No, I suppose not. Where are you living now?” Harry busied himself making tea and passing Malfoy the enriched arnica for his black eye.

“Sloane Street.”

“Very posh,” he whistled. “Can’t imagine there’s a place big enough for the three of you.”

Malfoy snorted. “Do you think I’m still living with my parents? God’s sake, Potter, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stinking rich, I would have moved out as soon as I was of age, only I had a psychopath burning his mark in my arm at the time.”

“So…where are your parents?”

“Argentina,” he grunted. “Father had enough sense to realise it was a bad idea to stick around in the UK. Or more likely it was Mother,” he mused, sipping his tea.

“And you? Didn’t you want to go with them?”

Malfoy put his cup down on the table and narrowed his eyes at Harry. “I have spent my entire life doing what my father told me to do. Following his politics, being a good pureblood heir. Look where it got me, Potter.” He rolled up his sleeve to show the dull rust-red of the inactive Dark Mark. “I know you think I believe all the propaganda I had poured into my ears from birth, but—“

“You did believe it.”

“When I was twelve. Well, to be fair, probably up until I was sixteen. Being forced to kill your own headmaster will disillusion you to a few things.”

“I saw you, you know,” Harry said softly, eyes fixed on his cup. “I got a lot of flashes of…insight? I dunno. I saw through Voldemort’s eyes a few times, and I saw you. I could see you hated it.”

Malfoy stayed still for a long time, staring into the middle distance. Then “I can teach potions, you know.”

“What?”

“This can’t just be a school for Defence against the Dark Arts. If we’re going to teach this bunch of misfits, let’s give them a bit more than shield spells and expeliarmus, let’s give them a more rounded education.”

Harry burst out laughing. “I should have known you weren’t coming here to study DADA.”

He snorted. “In case you’ve forgotten, Potter, I’m bloody good at duelling. Now. Come on, let’s see your setup.”

***

“What did you think you’d be doing when you turned twenty one?” Draco asked Harry as the sun set on his birthday. They sat on the roof of Grimmauld place passing a bottle of firewhiskey between them. In a few months time Hogwarts would be re-opening, but there were students who had decided to stay on at Grimmauld place, only taking their exams at Hogwarts when the time came. It had turned into a proper little college. Luna taught charms. Neville came over to do herbology lessons, and Ron had blossomed into a pretty good history teacher now he wasn’t being forced to do essays or try to kill dark wizards. Turns out when you choose to learn something, it’s more likely to stick, he often said.

“I don’t think I thought about it at all for years,” said Harry, dangling his legs down the slope of the roof. “I don’t know if I ever imagined surviving Voldemort. And then…” He sighed.

Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “You once said you thought everything would be different.”

“Yeah.”

“I always thought I’d be married with kids by now,” Draco said after a pause.

Harry turned to him, his eyebrows raised. “Really?”

He nodded. “Pureblood. It would probably have been an arranged marriage.” He snorted. “It would have to be, considering I’m gay as a fucking rainbow.” He drank again. “I would have been OK with it, though. I wanted kids. Still do, I guess.”

Harry stared into the distance and thought about the mirror of Erised and the night of the battle. “I thought I’d marry Ginny Weasley,” he admitted. “I…I had this stupid dream of us having three kids, and Ron and Hermione getting married too, and everyone going to King’s Cross together to drop our kids off. Even you were there.”

Draco snorted whiskey out of his nose. “You’re so fucking soft, Harry.”

He shrugged. “I just…I wanted a family, I guess.”

Draco looked at him, his eyes gentle. And Harry thought back to the last couple of years running this makeshift school with his old enemy, and how sixteen-year-old Harry would have found that look impossible to imagine, but he’d become quite fond of its rare appearance. More than fond. 

“There’s lots of different kinds of family,” Draco said softly. “But…if that’s really what you want, a wife and kids, I’m sure you’ll get that someday. It’s not fair that the saviour of the wizarding world doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Idiot,” he grinned, nudging his shoulder. “Sometimes people don’t get what they want, doesn’t matter who they are.”

But Draco wasn’t smiling. He looked gutted. “You should, though. You should have a family. It’s not right. You should get a…a wife and kids, if that’s what you want. Fuck, it’s not that much to ask, is it? Selfish, really. Of…of the world, to not let you have that.” He turned away and swiped at his face, took another gulp of firewhiskey.

“Draco…”

“I’ll find you someone. I bet I can find a girl for you, someone who’ll love you as much as I…as you deserve. You just wait, Potter, you’ll get your wife and three kids. I’m Draco Malfoy, I always get what I want.” 

He turned back to Harry, a wobbling smile on his face, his fist in the air to cheer himself on. Harry grabbed his wrist. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you always get what you want? Really?”

He snorted. “Are you joking? After all the years you’ve teased me for being a spoilt little brat? Yeah, Harry, I get everything I ask for.”

“Ah, but that’s not the same, is it? The things you ask for, and the things you really want.”

“I don’t…”

Harry’s heart was beating so hard inside his ribcage he thought it might burst through the bone, show every piece, every wish that had been growing since Draco had turned up on his doorstep demanding to be a potions teacher. He leaned forwards and cupped Draco’s cheek, so that his nose brushed Draco’s cheekbones. “I don’t want a wife,” he whispered, and kissed him.

Draco gasped and dropped the bottle. It rattled down the tiles of the sloped roof, bounced off the gutter and shattered below, but Harry barely noticed, because Draco had his fingers tangled in his shirt and was kissing him back.

***

“I still want kids,” Draco said, as they celebrated the end of their NEWTs (at twenty two, fucking finally).

“Yeah?” said Harry, pulling him closer on the dancefloor. 

Draco nodded firmly, but Harry could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “We can adopt.”

A smile spread over Harry’s face. “I’d like that. What do you think of the name James Sirius for a boy?”

“Are you joking, Potter?” he snorted. “Why would you name your child after two people you basically hero-worshiped and never actually knew properly? Do you want to put that much expectation on their heads?”

“I never thought about it like that,” he said. “I just…they were family, and—“

“Family’s important,” sighed Draco. “It is. How about this. We give them middle names after your parents, or godfather, or whoever you like. And their first names are entirely their own.”

Harry nodded slowly. “That’s…that’s perfect, actually.” He pressed his nose against Draco’s cheek, kissing his smile. “You want to name them after constellations? It’s something your family does, isn’t—“

But Draco put his fingers against Harry’s lips. “You’re my family, Harry.”

Harry closed his eyes and pressed his face into the crook of Draco’s neck, trying to hold back the overwhelming surge of emotion pressing behind his eyes.

***

Ginny shows no sign of settling down. She tours with the Harpies and has casual relationships with people she keeps as friends afterwards. Sometimes, as much as she loves her, her mother judges her for it. Sometimes she internalises that, wonders if she's broken for not wanting a marriage and three kids with Harry Potter. But she's happy with her life. It's right for her the way domestic bliss could never be, and the wind in her hair brings the joy through her veins like champagne.

Ron and Lavender get married. They argue and throw things. Lavender still worries she's not good enough. Ron still worries she's just settling for him. Then they see the love in each others' eyes and hold each other and it's OK. They want kids, but they're waiting until the world feels steady under their feet first. They want to be as good for their kids as their parents were for them.

Hermione stays in Australia. Her parents are recovering more and more memories every day. Some days they just hold each other, so thankful to be together again. Hermione calls her friends, and visits, and tries not to roll her eyes at Lavender's silly laugh and nicknames too much. She marries a Bidia man and they work tirelessly for indigenous rights in both Muggle and Wizarding communities. They have four children, and she loves them so much. Sometimes she feels like the world is falling out from under her feet, that nothing she does will ever make a difference. That there is too much injustice and cruelty in the world. Her husband holds her and smiles, tells her about the good in the world and pretends he doesn't feel the same way, and the next day they'll be working just as hard. They will change the world.

And Harry and Draco still teach in Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts. They bicker and snipe and drive each other completely mental, and then kiss fiercely. But no matter how much they've annoyed each other, they make up before bed and they never sleep apart, because they will always be there for each other when the nightmares come.

They have a son, Cygnus James, and a daughter, Lyra Lily. They sometimes wonder if they're fit parents. And then they hold their children tight in their arms and say 'do you know I love you?' And Lyra and Cygnus laugh and say, 'of course.'

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if that last bit is too depressing? I just...I fell like 'happy endings' are too much of a lie. Life is good and bad, it's not perfect...but you don't need 'perfect' for it to be a _happy_ ending.


End file.
